Over the weekend Orchestra Hall hosted two technically superb pianists who have won devoted followings, one in the popular arena, the other among keyboard connoisseurs. But there was such a world of difference in the playing of Lang Lang and Marc-Andre Hamelin — both certified virtuosos — as to render the designation inadequate, if not irrelevant, in the case of Hamelin.

As applied to Lang's performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Saturday night, virtuosity implied a kind of grandstanding athleticism that ultimately proved to be more a limitation than a virtue. More about that later.

For Hamelin, who appeared in recital on Sunday afternoon, virtuosity conveyed something closer to its original meaning. The Montreal-born, Boston-based pianist used his formidable instrumental gift to engage with the composers' intentions on the deepest level of musical understanding and poetic empathy.

Hamelin continues to march to his own drum in terms of programming. Along with mainstream repertory by Mozart, Debussy and Schubert, he presented two knuckle-busting piano works of his own and played an unknown piece by the Russian pianist-composer Samuil Feinberg as the second of his two encores. In everything he revealed himself to be a musician's musician, a virtuoso in the most comprehensive sense of the word.

He reminded us of his classical bona fides with a crisp and stylish reading of Mozart's final piano sonata, No. 18 in D (K.576), that evinced clarity of musical intention and articulation working in pristine unity.

The three Book 2 "Images" of Debussy found Hamelin the subtle colorist, operating in his impressionist element. "Cloches a travers les feuilles" ("Bells Sounding Across the Leaves") delighted in delicate sprays of arpeggios over finely controlled washes of piano pastels. Both the second piece and "Poissons d'or" ("Goldfish") were object lessons in applying soft dynamic gradations without any loss of tonal presence.

With his own pieces — "Pavane variee" and Variations on a Theme of Paganini — Hamelin was, in a sense, channeling the heroic feats virtuoso pianists of earlier generations achieved in their own music. Both works — the first based on a French Renaissance dance, the second on Paganini's famous (infamous?) solo violin Caprice No. 24 — are of transcendental difficulty. They gave his phenomenal technical and pianistic arsenal a grueling workout, and the results were jaw-dropping.

The Paganini opus amounts to both a celebration of all previous sets of variations on that particular caprice and a witty sendup of the entire genre, with cheeky references to the Beethoven Fifth, Liszt's "La Campanella" and other music along the way. Taking the tune into harmonic reaches that would have astounded Paganini, Hamelin did more than play the daylights out of his own piece — he made cultural commentary out of it.

There was more Debussy at encore time — "Feux d'artifice" ("Fireworks"), in all its glittering evocativeness — along with the sort of forgotten gem Hamelin loves to unearth: Feinberg's compact Sonata No. 1, Opus 1 (1915). The piece revels in the torrential bravura manner of early Scriabin and Hamelin made a meal of it.

These days Lang's concerts are more in the nature of celebrity blitzes than standard classical events. The hall again was packed with clamorous listeners for the Chinese piano superstar's one-night-only appearance on the CSO subscription series, in which he unleashed his flamboyant virtuosity on Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3, with Charles Dutoit conducting.

Prokofiev's ever-popular concerto, commissioned by the CSO and first performed by the orchestra under Frederick Stock, with the composer as soloist, in 1921, plays to the strengths of pianists of boundless technical capacity, such as Lang.

That said, little has changed from the interpretation he gave with this orchestra at Ravinia in 2013. The pianist pounced on the propulsive opening movement with clipped, incisive rhythm and an easy command of sonority that rode the orchestral crests without effort. He tore through the bravura hand-crossings and fiery fusillades of notes.

But there is more to this music than pianistic gymnastics. If Lang has toned down some of his mannerisms, affectations remain, particularly his penchant for tempo extremes. He treated parts of the slow movement with hushed deliberation before applying pedal to the metal for the fiery interludes. The finale was likewise episodic, veering between incendiary brilliance and mooning melodrama. None of this appeared to faze Dutoit, who secured a clean, steady accompaniment from the orchestra.

A series of long and loud ovations prompted Lang to offer as his encore Mexican composer Manuel Ponce's Intermezzo No. 1. This sentimental little salon piece brought the simplest, most heartfelt pianism of the night.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 24, 2016, in the Arts + Entertainment section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Piano virtuosos reveal different musical sensibilities" —
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